Equestria is gone, and has been replaced by a different civilisation, a civilisation corrupted in war between two organisations.
It has been over four thousand years since Princess Twilight Sparkle earned the title of princess, but Equestria has simply disappeared and is unknown to the residents of today. The current civilisation has attempted to discover the secrets this dead kingdom has waiting in store for them, but that was the spark that started the war. Two organisations have been fighting each-over over the little pieces of evidence they could find. The Salmaic and Deachrai. They have been fighting for centuries but the two clans have made a peace treaty but Hua, a respected member of the Deachrai, hasn't given up yet.
Twilight looked over her kingdom as she looked through the stained glass windows. She knew she was going to meet something that could overpower her, she knew it was going to come some time.
She heard a guard shout.
The coloured glass was hard to look through but she could still make out ponyville.
She heard a crashing noise.
She remembered the first time she met Pinkie, Rarity, Fluttershy, Rainbow and Applejack.
She heard running.
She remembered when she defeated Nightmare Moon.
She heard a guard scream.
She remembered when Flutturshy tamed the Manticore.
She heard a creaking of a door.
She remembered when Pinkie Pie saved ponyville from the parasprites.
She heard footsteps drawing nearer.
She remembered when Rainbow Dash did the sonic rainboom.
She felt breath on the back of her neck.
She remembered when she became a princess.
Four thousand two hundred years later
Hua leaped from the vessel and expanded her wings. Her pink mane and purple coat blew in the wind as she glided down to the deck of the Salmaic warship and bumped into a Salmaic soldier. Before she could react Hua plunged her dagger into the soldier's torso. She screamed and fell backwards, only to see Hua stab her in the neck.
As Hua's victim choked on her blood and Hua whispered softly in her ear.
"Rest in peace."
As the guard died Hua turned around to face the door. She rammed it open and ran down the few steps and scanned her surroundings. She saw the engine, ran towards it and She knelt down next to it and examined it for a few seconds.
She withdrew her saddle bag and opened it. She took out a small clock work contraption and planted it on the engine. As she pulled down the switch to activate the timer she heard footsteps behind her. She turned around and saw a pony with a purple mane and a red coat walk towards her, armed with a sword. It was Rhidana.
She stood up to face her where she stood.
They both charged.
Hua and Rhidana walked side by side down the marble corridor.
Hua said "What have you been up to then? Chatting up Lren again?"
Rhidana blushed "Stop it! I was drunk and bored so you can't blame me!"
Hua giggled
"Rhidana and Lren, sitting in a tree, K. I. S. S. I. N-"
"You can't say much! You were flirting with Kuati and Zaechri!"
"Yeah, but you can't deny, they are hot."
"Yeah, I suppose so."
Both of the girls walked through the doorway and walked into the dining room.
"But seriously, what have you been doing the past few hours?"
"Well, Me and Xean have been discussing about the Salmaic."
The pair sat down at the table.
The Salmaic is a organisation that fought against the Deachrai for hundreds of years.
"What about them?"
"Well we were thinking that we should invite them-"
"What?!"
"I know this sounds crazy but I think we should invite him over for tea or something."
A servant walked towards them and asked them what they wanted to eat.
"Um, a small salad please"
"Same here please" added Rhidana.
The servant walked off to the kitchen to tell the chef what the two mares had ordered.
"Geretiyak, leader of the Salmaic, the same clan that the Deachrai have been fighting against for over seven hundred years, is going to be our guest of honour." And then added "Oh yeah, did I mention that WE are the Deachrai? And we are going to invite him to dinner."
There was a pause before Rhidana answered.
"Well, you do make a obvious point, but it has been years and years since we last attacked each over, come on, what can go wrong?"
A part of Hua was telling her that nothing terrible can go wrong, but the Salmaic must be a little bit wary, right?
The servant came back with a tray with two plates of salad neatly placed next to each other.
"Thank you" Rhidana said to the servant.
He nodded and walked away. Then Zaechri entered the room and sat himself opposite the girls.
He had a green coat and a black mane.
"What are you doing?" He asked in a gentle but deep voice.
"Well Rhidana here wants to invite the salmaic over for tea."
Zaechri digested all the news in, and replied.
"I don't think Saeret will be too happy about that."
Saeret is the leader of the Deachrai group held in this area so what he says goes.
Rhidana looked at Hua and Zaechri in annoyance.
"Come on guys! Sooner or later we will have to make friends! This is a perfect opportunity!"
Zaechri looked at Rhidana.
"Well, Saeret is the boss, so you will have to sweet talk him."
Hua giggled.
"Yeah, she's already practised on Lren!"
"Hua!"
The servant came back to the table but Zaechri waved him off.
"I'm going to have to leave now, Lren wants me to help him out with something.
He walked off without another word. The girls continued to eat their salad in silence until Hua said something.
"How did this conflict between us and the Salmaic start?"
Rhidana usually hangs around with Xean alot so usually she knows some good bit of knowledge.
"Well, there are rumours that there is a hidden Kingdom somewhere in the wilder-"
"Yeah, yeah I know about the hidden kingdom, so skip that bit."
Rhidana looked annoyed at being interrupted by Hua.
"Anyway, as I was saying. We found bits of this and bits of that, thinking that there used to be some sort of large civilisation before us, so we started fighting each over, trying to find as much evidence as possible, trying to find the hidden treasures . But they were probably just some tribe that lived and survived for a century or two, nothing big."
Rhidana, didn't really think much of it, but unlike Rhidana, Hua was interested. Very interested indeed.
"What did they find?"
Rhidana swallowed her food.
"I dunno, s'pose some pottery or clothes. It's thousands of years old, that's what I do know."
"What species do you think they were?"
"Pony, definatley pony because of the shape of their clothes."
"Was there unicorn, or pegas-"
"You seem interested in all this, do you actually believe that there was a kingdo-"
Hua and Kuati walked down the path. Or should I say Hua dragged Kuati down the path.
"Why do you need me! Ask somone else to help you do your research!"
Kuati had a light grey coat and a dark green mane with three yellow streaks in it. He was also a idiot.
Hua turned to Kuati.
"Everyone else is busy preparing the place for the Salmaic and your doing nothing apart from running around like a idiot."
Kuati smiled sheepishly.
"Ah, that makes sense."
In a few minutes they got to the library. They looked around for a bit, until Hua found a book called 'The war of the crusade for the first civilisation'.
Kuati looked up from the book he was reading and looked at the title and read it.
"What a lame name for a book."
"Your reading a clopfic, so you can't say much."
Kuati put the book back.
"This one is boring anyway, it hasn't got any pictures in it."
Hua rolled her eyes and sighed.
"Boys."
She opened up the book and skimmed through the pages, but it only had knowledge about the war, not the actual civilisation.
Then Kuati shouted from the back of the library.
"Here, I think I-"
"Shhhhhhhh!"
"Oh sorry!"
The the pony at the counter scowled at Kuati and looked back at the book she was reading.
Hua trotted down to Kuati.
"What is it?"
Kuati raised the book to show Hua the title. 'The ones who came before, the discoveries and notes made by Leovadca Doch Lee'.
Hua looked at Kuati and smiled.
"Your amazing, good work!"
"Well, I am one heck of a stallion."
Hua sat down on the floor and rolled her eyes.
"Let's take a look at this thing, shall we?"
Kuati sat down next to Hua while she turned the pages over to the index. But there wasn't one.
"Its going to take forever for us to find what we need!"
"Your alawys looking at the bad side of things aren't you?"
"Well you can get started on that, while I go and find some more clo- I mean books to help us understand the subject a bit more."
"Hey! Kuati come here!"
"Ah, that's some good curves right there- oh, uh what did you say?"
"Come here."
Kuati left his book where it was and looked over Hua's shoulder.
"What have you found?"
"Look, you see that picture?"
Kuati looked at the picture of two ponies forming a circle. One of them was painted with a dark navy colour with blue hair while the other one was white and had a pink mane. Kuati noticed that there was a sun and a moon in the middle of the two of them.
"Okay, so some guy decided to paint a picture of two ponies."
Hua hit herself on the head.
"Don't you see? They have a unicorn horn and a pair of wings."
Kuati observed the image again and saw what she meant.
"So what, someone decided to draw a half unic-"
"In the book it says that it is called a alicorn. I suspect that they were seen as gods, or must have been-"
She trailed off, talking about what the picture could mean. At the same time a figure walked into the room.
Kuati didn't give the pony a second thought until Hua turned to the figure and stare, a thing she rarely does.
When Kuati saw the mysterious figure he did the same. The mysterious pony was Geretiyak.
Geretiyak was a large unicorn with a crimson red coat and a black mane, so he looked threatening, even though he would not cause any harm to them. He walked over to the two ponies and stopped to look down at the book Kuati had been reading a minute ago.
"Hm, this library has some very... Odd books."
Kuati was too stunned to react, so Geretiyak continued on.
"The library near where I live has no such books."
He levitated the book and inserted it into a gap in the shelves.
"Instead we have science and engineering books, without them we would have no airships or other clockwork contraptions to aid us."
He finished his sentence and looked at Hua.
"Why so shocked my friend? It looks as though you have seen a ghost."
Hua ran to Lren and turned to face him.
Lren had a indigo streak running down his red hair and he was equipped with a yellow coat. Hua also hated him at that moment of time.
"I thought you were supposed to take our guest on a tour!"
Lren turned to face Hua.
"He asked me if he could go and wonder off by himself so I said yes! Did you expect me to say no to him?"
Hua sighed.
"Well... Sorry, look, me and Kuati were looking for information on the missing kingdom and he just surprised us."
Lren and Hua walked forward.
"Okay, I suppose it would be kind of freaky if guy you pretty much hate walked up behind like that."
Both of the ponies entered the dining room. Hua looked at the food neatly layed out across the large oak table and took a seat.
"Well this looks delicious!"
Lren took a seat next to her.
"Indeed it does!"
Zaechri, Rhidana and Kuati walked in.
Rhidana sat down on the chair next to Hua and the two Colts found two seats opposite them. Zaechri looked at the food in front of him. "Well, best not eat it yet, or Saeret will give us a grilling."
Xean; a unicorn with black fur and a black mane with a golden and silver streak, Saeret; a colt with green hair and green fur, Reata; a orange unicorn with a orange coat, Geretiyak and another pegasus who had a grey coat and violet hair, probably a friend of Geretiyak, came in and sat at the table.
Saeret looked towards everyone.
"Well, greetings everyone, I am sure you have met Sir Geretiyak"
Saeret looked towards Geretiyak.
"And the ponies here are lords and lady's of this house"
Saeret introduced Geretiyak to Hua, Rhidana, Reata, Lren, Zaechri and Kuati. Geretiyak nodded to each of them.
"Oh, and if you do not know who this gentlecolt is," He looked over to the colt. The colt nodded and looked at the others. "My name is Ouis, I am the head archeologist for the Salmaic, nice to meet you."
Hua was definately suspicious. Why would Geretiyak, the lord of the Salmaic house, bring his head archeologist, out of all of his allies, why him?
Well, it's quite obvious if you think about it. He still wants to discover the truth about the lost kingdom. And he's brought his best archeologist to snoop around the library to find some information that they don't have.
But the question is why? Why would he be interested in the missing civilisation after all this time? Why now?
Hua didn't know, but she definatley suspected something.
Rhidana snapped Hua back into reality.
"What are you doing down there? Come on, there is some amazing wine down by the chocolate fount- Wait, what! There's a chocolate fountain!" And with that Rhidana ran off to the chocolate fountain and squealed.
Hua smiled to herself.
"That crazy earthpony"
She forgot that there was a party going on. She decided to follow Rhidana to the chocolate fountain and found her lapping at the melted choclate.
"Hey Hua! This chocolate is delicious! Here try some"
Hua looked at the fountain. She was about to lean forward when someone tapped her on the back.
She looked around to see Ouis there.
The colt smiled at Hua.
"Hello, I don't believe we have fully acquainted ourselves with each over. Shall we walk?"
Hua looked around to Rhidana, but she was busy distracting herself with a ball.
Ouis led the way with Hua walking next to him.
Hua didn't know what to expect, but she knew that Ouis wasn't just here for a nice old chat.
There was a awkward silence as the two ponies strolled along the path.
Ouis looked at Hua and broke the ice.
"I know you know why I am here Hua, I'm no fool."
Great.
"Geretiyak told me about your little research."
Hua looked at Ouis.
"Oh, I was just interested, that's all."
Ouis stopped and turned to face Hua. He didn't have time for games.
"I really do think that you're getting yourself into a situation that you will regret. And if you get in my way..."
A chill went up Hua's spine, and she gulped.
Ouis smiled.
"But let's cast away this hate that is wedged between us."
He turned to walk away.
"It's a party after all."
"Hua, you gotta check this out."
Kuati tapped Hua on the back and held up a book. Hua saw that it was the same book that contained the image of the two alicorns.
"What have you found?"
Kuati led Hua to the library and opened the book.
"Look"
Hua read the text.
-it all. The architecture and landmarks have been relatively similar in certain areas. This indicates that these must have either been cities or tribes, but there is no sign of damage or weapons so the chances that they were tribes are very slim. There have also been discoveries of the same items found in different areas, meaning that there was either a trading system going around or that they were united and so sold the same items of materials and spices. The following image shows two peices of pottery, both found in different-
The text trailed off, talking about the different pottery that they used. Hua looked at Kuati and smiled.
"You sure are getting into this research business aren't you?"
"Just a bit."
Hua looked back at the book.
"Well, I'm pretty curtain that this is a kingdom we are searching for."
"Yeah, but it still doesn't explain why Geretiyak is still searching for it."
Hua looked up.
"You figured that out to?"
Kuati nodded.
"I overheard you and Ouis. They must of found some sort of evidence that made them certain that the kingdom is real."
Hua thought for a few seconds and grinned.
"Kuati, you ever wanted to find out what the Salmaic have behind those walls of thiers?"
The two mares walked towards Thute park, where Hua told Kuati to meet them. She didn't know why she chose this place, but this is the place where Hua became a Deachrai. She was lost in the fog, when she saw Xean. She walked towards him because she was scared. Because she was lost.
"I mean, Ouis threatening you is a tad bit weird but theft, that's illegal."
Rhidana snapped her back into reality.
"We are not going to steal anything, just take a snoop around, that's all!"
A group of teenagers stared at Hua and Rhidana, but immediately looked away from them once they saw there cutie mark.
Hua forgot that people were afraid of both the Salmaic and Deachrai alike. (A tattoo of a vine going up someone's leg means that they are apart of the Salmaic but if you found a tattoo outlining someone's cutie mark that means they are Deachrai.)
Hua looked at Rhidana.
"I think we should go and find Kuati and then find a isolated area where we can talk."
"Agreed."
The girls waited next to the statue of some sort of famous pony and waited. In a few minutes Kuati appeared.
"Hi guys! We gonna go then?"
Hua looked at Rhidana with an expression saying do you want to come or not?
Rhidana hesitated before nodding.
"Okay, but not until I hear the plan"
Hua grinned and started to walk towards the doorway of a abandoned house. Hua opened the door and the group walked in. Kuati turned to face the door and cast a spell onto it.
"That should keep them out."
Hua looked around the silent and undisturbed room.
"Let's go up to the top floor, just in case someone decides to eavesdrop."
The trio climbed up the wooden staircase. On the top floor there was a bookshelf tilted on it's side and a large willow table in the center of the isolated room.
Hua walked to one side of the table and looked at Kuati.
"Get the equipment."
Kuati nodded and then teleported a large rolled up blueprint, one sheet of paper, one ink bottle, two ink quills and two flasks filled with a golden substance.
Hua smiled at Rhidana.
"We are going to breach the Salmaic HQ."
Hua unrolled the blueprint and turned it towards Rhidana.
"Here, look." Rhidana observed the blueprint and realised that it was the Salmaic head quarters.
Hua pointed to four places on the map.
"The HQ has four entrances. The front entrance, the door leading to the back garden, the back entrance and the stairs leading up to the platform above on the second floor. The front entrance is to risky, so we will have to each take one of the three other routes separately."
Rhidana looked up from the blueprint.
"What?! Are you crazy? We will have to split up?"
Hua looked at Rhidana and sighed.
"If we stick together then people will get suspicious."
"If someone sees us then they will recognise us anyway!"
Hua shook her head.
"I will get to that part in a minute."
Hua looked down at the blueprint and continued.
"So, when we take our entrances then we will meet up here." Hua pointed to a room labeled storage.
"There, we can meet up and discuss the things we should do next."
"Okay, but how are we meant to keep our cover from being blown?"
Hua smiled and cocked her head towards the glass vial.
"That."
Rhidana looked at the golden substance and looked back to Hua.
"What does it do?"
Kuati spoke for Hua.
"It's a potion that can change the colour of your eyes, change the colour of your mane and change your cutie mark."
Rhidana looked worried.
"Are the symptoms permanent?"
"No, not if you have less then then a tablespoon."
Rhidana looked relieved.
"But how about the tattoos?"
Kuati closed his eyes and cast three blue separate threads to each of the ponies for five seconds. There tattoos that were outlying there cutie mark disappeared and instead a tattoo of a vine streaked up one of there legs.
Kuati smiled.
"That's how."
Hua smiled at Kuati.
"Good work."
Kuati smiled.
"Well I am one hell of a pony."
Both of the girls giggled. When they finished Rhidana looked towards Hua.
"How long will the effects last?"
"For a few hours, so it would be best to drink a bit of the potion just before we enter the building."
"So when shall we go?"
"Around 9am."
"What time is it?"
Kuati teleported his alarm clock onto the table. It read 08:07.
"Well looks like we will go in about a hour."
Hua nodded.
"Rhidana, don't worry, what could possibly go wrong?
They galloped down the hallway, narrowly dodging a servant.
Hua thought in her head as the trio ran towards the door leading to the front entrance; How did this go so wrong?
Kuati stopped near the wall of bushes and peeked through them.
On the other side was the HQ.
He looked around nervously. Usually he would've teleported to the otherside, but he didn't want to risk the noise so he had to squeeze through.
Once he was in the garden he briskly trotted along the grass. He slowed down once he was on the gravel path. He saw a yellow pegasus with a red mane, who looked around about his age looking at the plants. He wanted to get to the double doors as quick as possible but he should have known better.
"Hello sir, haven't seen you before."
Kuati took a deep breath and turned towards the pegasus.
"Hello, you're right, I'm from another group down south."
"Ah, should've expected that. Geretiyak is always inviting other Deachrai members to our home."
She smiled.
"Where are you heading? I can lead you there if you like."
Kuati considered this, he couldn't say that he was heading to the storage area. So he decided that he should ask her to lead him to the indoor water fountain, which was near the storage area.
"Can you take me to the indoor water fountain please, I am meeting a friend there. But I only ask if you have the spare time on your hoofs."
The mare smiled at Kuati.
"Of course, follow me."
Kuati thought he heard a purr in the last word she said as the pegasus lead him indoors.
Rhidana looked at the stairs.
The original plan was for her to take the steps that lead up to the balcony and walk through the door that leads to the second floor of the mansion.
But all of that changed when there was a large sign saying:
Please enter the area via reception
The stairway was having the old wood removed and new planks of wood taking it's place. But unfortunately they're still doing that.
Hua sighed and turned back around. She would have to go in through the front entrance. She trotted down the pathway and turned a corner. She carried on walking. This took a good few minutes.
She could see the front entrance now. She gulped. And she entered.
Hua opened the gate and walked through. There was nobody there. Good.
She walked forwards a few steps until someone jumped out in front of her.
She gasped, but then saw that it was a filly.
"Boo!"
Hua laughed at herself for being so foalish.
The filly looked up at Hua.
"Hello!"
Hua smiled back.
"Hello, you scared me!"
The little filly squealed with laughter.
Hua kept on moving forward, towards the back door.
The little child spoke.
"Hello! My name is Booster! Who are you?"
Hua looked at Booster and smiled. She couldn't tell her her actual name, so she made one up.
"Hello Booster, I'm Querky, nice to meet you."
Booster squealed.
"We can be best friends! We can do eachovers mane and we can play hop scotch!"
Hua smiled grimly to herself as they walked through back entrance.
She used to be like Booster as a filly, if only she could come back here and actually manage to do all those things with her.
Kuati now knew alot about the pegasus. Firstly, her name is Scratch and she was born into the Deachrai. Both of her parents had died and she was a only child.
Kuati told her that his name was Cane, and told her that he too was born into the clan.
They were now at the fountain and Scratch looked up to Kuati.
"Is that all you need?"
Kuati nodded.
"Yes, thank you for your company."
Scratch grinned at Kuati.
"Are you sure, you don't need anything else, perhaps you might want to, you know..."
Kuati knew she fancied him. He had half a mind to say yes, but he knew that the other two would start to worry.
But before he could decline he felt a warm kiss on his mouth. At the same time Scratch unfolded her wing and put it over Kuati and dragged him into the storage area.
Rhidana walked down the hallway avoiding eye contact with the other ponies in the room.
But then a elderly pony walked up to her.
"Fedrona! You are already ten minutes late to your meeting, chop chop!"
Rhidana was about to protest but the pony grabbed her leg and walked forwards.
"He's already in a bad mood and you're just making it worseworse!"
Rhidana didn't know who 'he' was but she didn't want to find out. They walked up a flight of stairs and Rhidana spoke.
"I think you're mistaking me for someone else you see I-"
"You can't lie to me, I know who you are Miss Fedrona."
They stopped at a door and the pony opened it up.
"Miss Fedrona is here!"
Rhidana looked through the door and gasped.
In the office was Geretiyak, sitting at a desk with piles of paperwork.
Rhidana was so shocked that she stumbled backwards, letting the vial in her satchel fall out and smash on the ground.
Geretiyak looked up from his paperwork and looked at the golden liquid on the floor.
"I spy with my little eye, something beginning with 'f'."
Booster looked around the room, until he spotted the fountain.
"The water fountain! My turn!"
Hua smiled at Booster, but the smile faded away when she heard a scream.
Booster jumped at the sound.
"What was that?"
Hua didn't notice him though, because she was distracted by another thing.
Kuati walked out of the storage area with a pegasus following behind him.
"Come on, are you sure you don't want to, I don't know, stay in here for a minute or two?"
Kuati looked paralysed as he looked at Scratch.
"Um, I, well... I don't mind us doing that some other time in the future perhaps, but I really need to-"
He spotted Hua and ran towards her.
"Some other time perhaps?"
Hua looked at Kuati with a puzzled expression. Kuati sighed.
"Long story, did I just hear Rhidana scream though?"
Hua nodded.
"Yes she has screamed, let's go up there-"
She was stopped mid sentence when a panting Rhidana ran up to the two ponies.
"Run!"
She didn't need to say that twice.
The trio galloped away, leaving behind a bewildered Scratch and Booster.
As Hua ran down the corridor, she thought to herself; how did this go so wrong?
Well, you could either say that they were lucky or unlucky. Or both.
After they met up with each over they ran down the corridor to the main entrance. But it was blocked by a guard.
So they decided that it would be best to try the other three entrances. They were blocked off to.
"We need to do something, Kuati, teleport us out of here!"
Kuati looked at Hua.
"I can't. It won't let me! They must have some sort of shield to prevent teleportation!"
Hua groaned.
"Great, just great."
Hua spotted a vent and beckoned to the others.
"Guys! This way!"
It took ten seconds for them all to get into the vent.
Hua led the way through the cramp vent and somehow got to the storage area.
As Kuati crawled out of the vent.
"Well, we did manage to get to the storage area."
Neither of the girls responded.
Hua looked around the room. It was full of crates and boxes, some tightly secured while others starting to show sign of decay.
Hua looked around the room once more and looked towards the other two ponies.
"We haven't failed yet, so, let's start unpacking these things."
The other two nodded and wandered off to a box.
Hua looked at a small box and opened it. Inside was a case with five solid gold necklaces in it. Each one had a different shaped and colour gem in the middle. One was red and shaped like a lightning bolt. Another was orange with the shape of an apple. Another one was pink and was carved into the shape of a butterfly. Another was pink with the shape of a balloon. And the last one was purple and in the shape of a diamond.
She closed the case and put it into her saddle bag.
Hua looked at another crate and walked over to it. She tried to open it up, but it was to secure.
She looked around for a wrench or pipe but she couldn't see any.
Then Rhidana walked up to Hua and looked at her with a pipe.
"Sorry, for messing up the plan, I was scared and worried. I didn't know-"
"Don't worry, you made a small mistake so what?"
Hua smiled warmly.
"We are all safe and sound now."
Rhidana nodded, then looked up at Hua.
"Can you ever forgive me?"
Hua smiled.
"Of course."
Rhidana shook her head.
"No, not for that, for this."
Hua didn't know what she meant but when she felt a sharp pain in the side of her head and blacked out. Well, she didn't need to know...
Hua opened her eyes and sat up. What, happened?
She was outside, on a rooftop and the stars were glowing bright in the black sky.
Hua then realised that Rhidana had betrayed her.
She saw Kuati a few metres away and he came towards her.
"I saw what Rhidana did to you. She went through the door. I think she went to get some guys to drag you out, but I managed to drag you up that ladder"
He cocked his head towards a open window placed on top of the roof.
"And brought you up here."
Hua smiled weakly, then started to sob.
Kuati came closer to Hua and they both hugged each over.
Hua couldn't believe that Rhidana had betrayed them both. She didn't care why.
Hua kept on crying in Kuati's mane for a few more minutes. For her, it felt like a hour.
Hua then let go of Kuati and moved back a step to give Hua her space.
Kuati then looked over his shoulder and looked at the stars.
"We can go home, if you like. We can both take another bit of the potion and sneak out."
Hua was still sobbing quietly, so it took a moment for her to look up.
"Yes, I think we should go."
The ponies opened there glass vials and took a sip from the golden substance. They climbed through the widow and without any hassle got out of the building.
Kuati looked at Hua.
Did you manage to find anything.
Hua nodded.
"Yes, yes I did, how about you?"
Kuati nodded.
"I have found something."
Hua smiled.
"When we get back we should look at them."
Kuati nodded in agreement. He was glad that they managed to find some more information, but Hua was mentally scarred for the rest of her life.
Hua and Kuati entered the building. As they walked across the hallway Kuati spotted Lren.
"Hey Hua, do you think we should tell Lren about this?"
Hua nodded.
"I suppose it won't do any harm. Just make sure he doesn't tell Saeret."
Kuati nodded.
"Sure."
Hua smiled and walked off to her room.
Hua spoke quietly to herself.
"How could this happen? Rhidana is my... Was, my friend."
As she spoke those last words she stopped suddenly.
"Was, she my friend? Is she a traitor?"
Then the revelation sank in.
"She was never my friend. She was a spy."
Hua started to worry. Rhidana never was a member of the Deachrai. She was a Salmaic spy undercover seeking out information about... Oh god. She found the book before her.
Rhidana was leaking information written in the book to Geretiyak. This means that Geretiyak had the upper hand. And if he gets the treasure and the... Oh sweet heaven, the secrets.
Hua swiftly turned around and galloped down the second corridor, leading to Saeret's office. She opened the door to find no one there.
"Hua!"
A voice coming from across the corridor shouted.
She turned around to see Zaechri.
"There's a meeting in the dining room, Saeret needs every-"
But he didn't have time to finish his sentence as Hua ran past him heading towards the dining area.
Hua halted outside the dining room door and opened the door.
Everyone was inside, except Zaechri, who was seconds away from the door. Saeret looked at Hua.
"Come in, we need to discuss something-"
But he was stopped by Hua.
"Sir, the Deachrai are plotting against us, we need to do something!"
Everyone gasped, except Saeret who gaped. Saeret spoke.
"How did you come across this information? I was about to discuss this situation with everyone."
It was Hua's turn to gape.
"What?! How did you find out?!"
Both Hua and Saeret were confused now, and the dining room was full of whispers.
Xean spoke out loud.
"Silent everyone! Let Saeret resume."
But Saeret was lost for words, so Xean continued for him.
"Hua, how do you know about the situation before we even spoke of it outloud?"
And then Saeret added.
"Are you the cause of this?"
Kuati spoke for Hua.
"Yes me, Hua and Rhidana broke into the Salmaic HQ."
The whispers grew louder.
Saeret was shocked.
"Why?! Why did you do that?!"
Kuati replied truthfully.
"Because Ouis threatened Hua and revealed that he wanted to find more information about the lost kingdom, so me, Hua and Rhidana decided to snoop around their base."
Saeret took a while to process all the news. He looked over to Xean. Xean spoke.
"Well, where is Rhidana?"
Kuati gulped and was about to speak when to his surprise Hua spoke for him.
"She's a spy working for the Salmaic."
The whole room went silent.
Even Kuati looked surprised.
Hua continued.
"She never was a Deachrai or a traitor. Her loyalty lies with the Salmaic. And the Salmaic alone."
A tear ran down from her eye and landed onto the soft carpet.
Rhidana, the mare who she had always looked out for, was fake.
Saeret saw the tear run down her face, and he knew she wasn't lying.
"Everyone is dismissed. Hua, follow me."
Saeret led Hua to his office and levitated two cushions onto the ground. He and Hua sat down on them and he looked at Hua.
"I was given a letter that one of my men had attacked his base."
He cocked his head over to a letter on his desk.
"Are you ok? Do you mind telling me what happend for me?"
Hua nodded and told him about how they had planned there infiltration and how everything had gone terribly wrong.
Saeret looked at the wall for a few seconds before looking at Hua.
"Did you find anything?"
Hua nodded. She opened her satchel to reveal the five pieces of jewellery and the role of parchment, which was to their delight, a map.
Saeret observed the map and smiled.
"That's great!"
Hua looked confused.
"Your, not angry?"
Saeret shook his head.
"No! No not at all! If you hadn't of done what you did then we would've still had a spy to deal with! And because of this."
Hua was in state of emotions. Confusion. Anger. Saddness. Relief.
Hua had thought that Saeret would punish her for breaking into the HQ. But he wasn't. In fact, he was thanking her!
But the downside was that both of the organisations are now pretty angry at each over. News travels fast in the world and other groups that work for the Deachrai or Salmaic know about the news.
But another uplifting thing was that Equestria used to exist! The Salmaic must of found the map somewhere, making them certain that a kingdom once thrived. But, why is it gone? Why has it simply vanished? How did it vanish? This question has been on Hua's mind for the last few days.
Hua shook her head and came back to reality. Saeret had told her to meet him in his office. She didn't know why, but she knew it was going to be important.
She was outside of the door to his office. She opened it and peeked into it.
She saw Saeret at his desk, working.
Saeret smiled.
"Come in, I have something to tell you."
She entered the room and closed the door behind her.
Saeret looked at Hua.
"Hua, you have proven yourself to me, to this organisation, that you are brave and smart."
Hua frowned a bit. What does he mean? Saeret continued.
"You are a well respected member of the Deachrai."
Then, what he said next made her gasp.
"You are now officially a member of the high council."
The high council is a selection of members of the Deachrai that make decisions. The leaders of each group are a part of the high council. Each of the leaders then chose there most loyal recruits to join the high council. Xean was a member of the council. And now is Hua too.
"Sir, I don't know what to-"
"Hua, let me lead you to your new office."
Hua was happy.
Hua was happy.
She was sitting on a seat behind her desk. She had a office!
Those four words just kept coming back into her mind. She couldn't help it.
After the grief and dismay of having to witness Rhidana's true identity it was about time for something good to happen.
Hua was looking at a letter given to her. It read:
To Hua Colaroa. We congratulate you on your ascension to the high council, without you we would be in a state. There is a meeting in the Deachrai group located in area 76. There we will discuss about the Salmaic and how we should act against them. Meeting will be held from 10:30-12:15 on the fourteenth day after Fall. Yours sincerely, Lord Matreymax.
Matreymax was the leader of the high council, meaning that he has the most authority within the Deachrai community.
It was 08:13 am now so Hua thought that it would be best to meet up with Saeret and Xean to start the long voyage to area 76. Hua was in area 32 so it would be a long voyage.
Hua got off her chair and was about to walk out when she remembered that it would probably be good to bring the map of Equestria and the five pieces of jewellery with her.
Hua, Xean and Saeret climbed out of the air balloon they had used to get to area 72.
Hua looked around the area. It was oddly similar to area 32 in many ways. One of the similarities was that there are a lot of ponies here.
The trio walked among the crowds of people. Some areas in area 32 were pretty empty and peacfull, like Thute park, but area 76 was full to the brim. No one politely asked someone to move, instead they would barge into someone and leave them. But Hua and the two colts had authority here.
Area 76 was most famous for the number of meetings held in the Deachrai base located in area 76. So that means lots of ponies had been punished by the Deachrai for mistreating a member of the Deachrai. So most ponies feared the Deachrai, and sometimes out of fear help them.
Many of the ponies walking around made sure that they weren't going to get in the way of the Deachrai. As Hua walked forwards towards the base Hua gulped.
The three ponies were sat at a seat belonging to the colossal round table that filled the gigantic room. In the room was one hundred and seventy ponies sat at the table.
There was seventy six Deachrai groups located in the world, and one hundred and fourth three areas in the world.
Most groups only have two members who are apart of the high council that are in their group, but some groups, like Saeret's group has three or even four members who are apart of the high council.
Lord Matreymax was sitting in a chair with two other ponies next to him. Once everypony was there he cleared his throat.
"Welcome, everypony, to this meeting."
He smiled at the high council.
"We are here today, to discuss something that we haven't talked about in decades."
Everyone was silent. They knew what he was going to say.
"The Salmaic."
A few silent conversations were spreading across the room.
"Silence please."
Everyone looked at Matreymax.
"We have had a report from Saeret and his group that Geretiyak had plotted against him when he was invited to their base for dinner."
Everyone looked over to Saeret.
"Geretiyak had brought his head archeologist with him so that he could discover any items of importance that could aid him to help him find the lost kingdom."
A yellow unicorn stood up.
"But we have no ground breaking evidence that this kingdom exists."
Saeret shook his head.
"Saeret, show us what you have found."
Saeret stood up and he gestured Hua to stand up as well, with the map and the case of jewellery.
"My dear friend Hua-"
He cocked his head to Hua.
"Broke into Geretiyak's head quartets with two other members of my group. But one of them was actually a under cover agent working for the Salmaic. Despite this we discovered some items of some valuable importance."
Hua produced the five pieces of jewellery.
Saeret continued.
"Now, pegasus and earth ponies may not understand, but these items are powerful."
Hua was told by Xean that unicorns could sense something powerful. These items had a mysterious power.
Matreymax nodded.
"Yes, these items do have some form of magic that I have never felt before."
Saeret smiled.
"Yes, but we have more."
Hua continued for Saeret while Xean used his magic to levitate the map so that everyone could see.
"This is a map of the lost kingdom, Equestria."
A few whispers were flowing around the room. And a white colt spoke.
"But it could be a fake map."
Hua nodded.
"Yes, but what do you think the Salmaic would say about that?"
A few ponies nodded.
"Its obvious that the Salmaic believe that Equestria exists, in fact they might have already been there."
The whole room went silent. Even Saeret wasn't expecting this.
"They wouldn't act against us unless they were curtain that Equestria exists. So they have probably been to Equestria to make sure that it exists."
Everyone nodded and the white colt blushed with embarrassment and sank down onto his chair.
The yellow unicorn who stood up before spoke again.
"But how do we know where Equestria is? How do we find the location?"
Hua smiled and pointed at some mountains on the map that were labeled the Frozen north.
"Have you ever seen this many mountains in a row before?"
Xean nodded.
"Yes, in the empty land."
The empty land was a large area where there was nothing but mist and clouds.
A green pegasus spoke.
"Are you saying that the empty land is where Equestria is?"
Hua smiled.
"Yes, I think so."
Everypony turned to face Matreymax. He was speaking to another pony quietly. The pony nodded.
Matreymax looked around to the high council.
"We, are going to find Equestria."
Everypony cheered. For hundreds of years of work and fighting the Deachrai had finally found it. The lost kingdom, was found.
Hua was very pleased with herself. She had managed persuade Saeret to join the crew of the ship Yearchai.
The Yearchai was a large ship that had a balloon made from a thick layer of red silk to keep it afloat in the sky. The rims of the boat was outlined with the most prodigious metal, platinum. The silver and gold coloured material made the sky look mundane. But the most unique his large vessel was made out of a special material called beltower.
Hua had learnt of beltower when she was five and she was and still is intrigued by this natural wonder. Once beltower is stripped of it's bark and is cut into long sleek planks they would then be packaged and delivered to those you wish to own such materials. The owner could then, if they had the money, pay money to a experienced unicorn mage and in exchange the spell wielder would cast a spell on the black wood to enchant it with a rune of the owner's choice.
There are many runes that could be carved into the onyx coloured wood. There are runes when the wood could become reflect images like a mirror or become translucent like a sheet of glass.
The Yearchai however is owned by the Deachrai, so what do you expect a object possessed by the organisation to be like? Lavish. Pricey. Fancy. Or my new favourite words used by the 'snobbish foke', swank. That describes the wood, right? Anyway.
Only the bestest of unicorns that studied beltower were paid to enchant the wood. The runes used on the wood were the runes Lys, Haizea and Gogorra.
The rune Lys can make beltower unthinkably light. This means that the raven shaded wood would not be a burden to the crimson silk balloon that has to lug the wood.
The second rune, Haizea, makes the wood immune to most wind. The rune is tricky to conjour up and cannot live up to any wind that proves to be too forcefull but despite that the rune has proved to have saved many lives.
Gogorra was the final enchantment to be placed onto the exquisite wood. With this rune the wood would prove to be stronger and more resiliant to any threats like rockfalls or cliff sides. This spell requires the most effort and time to prepare for and unfortunately even the few great unicorns that study beltower runes can't produce the spell.
The great vessel drifted through the sky like a tender cloud. Hua walked over to the rear of the ship and walked up to Kuati. He was extremely lucky to be here, especially since he's not apart of the high council. But since he had helped Hua discover the evidence they decided to accept the unicorn's pleading.
Kuati was looking at the engines.
"Hi Kuati, what are you doing?"
Kuati looked up to Hua and smiled.
"Hey there most exquisite one, how is the lady today?"
Oh god. Ever since Hua became a member of the high council he always called her that.
"Shut up, why are you looking at those?"
Hua cocked her head towards the engines. Kuati looked back at them.
"Don't you just love the design, I mean look at it, it can go on and on and can never stop! Well, it can last seven months nonstop!"
Hua smiled.
"I suppose so, I think the wood is pretty cool though."
Kuati looked at Hua.
"What is it made out of? I've never seen anything like it."
"It's called beltower, it can have any rune cast upon it."
"Ah, that's pretty sweet, supose we need 'em if we're trying to search for something."
Saeret walked towards both of the ponies.
"Hello guys, we're having a meeting up down in the dining area, care to join us?"
Hua and Kuati nodded and followed Saeret down the small flight of stairs leading to the inside of the ship. They walked across a narrow hallway and entered through the door leading to the dining area.
Inside there was six other ponies. Hua had already acquainted herself with Blue Tulip, a blue earth pony with a purple mane.
There was also Timber Mane, the captain of the ship, she had met him and Timber had told her about the beltower wood. He had a scruffy brown mane and a light grey coat.
Then there was Mreco Reaver, another member of the high council who was leading the search. He had a large, spiked up ash tinted mane and crimson fur.
There were three others but she didn't know who they were.
Mreco smiled at the trio and beckoned to them.
"Take a seat friends, we have plans to discuss."
The trio took a seat at the table and looked at Mreco.
Hope you had a fine night everypony."
Hua shook her head.
"Could've been better."
Hua was never good with sleeping in a bed other then her own one.
Timber laughed.
"Well, this ain't a five star hotel honey."
Kuati chuckled with Timber.
"She's never able to sleep in any bed other then her bed."
"Aye, well you'll need to learn to get your buety sleep here 'cos you're gonna be on this 'ere vessel for a while."
Mreco butted in.
"We aren't here to speak of sleep, we are here to discuss our plans on Equestria."
Saeret rolled out a copy of the map of Equestria. The original one was locked away safely. Timber looked over the map.
"Hmm... Well, this 'ere Equestria is definatley in the empty land, those mountains up north are definatley recognisable. We could go to the mountains and then estimate roughly how far north, south, east or west we nee' to go before we land."
Then the blue mare next to her piped up.
"Indeed uncle, but where should we go once we're at the mountains? What village or town?"
"Well Chipper, I think that i' be wiser to go to this Crystal Empire, it be the closest place to the mountain, but only do we go if Mreco agrees."
He turned his head to Mreco. Mreco was in deep thought for a moment and came nodded.
"Agreed, we shall go to the Crystal Empire once we reach the mountains."
A green colt then spoke up.
"So, do we all agree?"
Everyone nodded, except Chipper, who was trotting out through the door.
"I better help mah little brother, knowing him if you left him on the deck for too long he'll fall righ' off!"
Everyone waved goodbye and Saeret looked towards Mreco.
"Is the meeting going to be dismissed this soon?"
"Yes unfortunately, we can't do much until we get to the Crystal Empire."
Everyone was dismissed and Hua and Tulip were left in the dining room by themselves.
"So Hua, what do you think about all this Equestria business?"
"I don't know really."
"How do you think everypony in Equestria well, died?"
This was a tough question. Hua never really thought about how they became extinced.
"Well, probably just died out, or some sort of volcano might have erupted."
Tulip had a sly grin on her face.
"Don't lie to me, I know what you're thinking."
Hua sighed.
"Well, okay, something big could of happened, but we're not sure."
Tulip sighed with impatience.
"Look, this map is still in good shape, so it couldn't of been made a million years ago. So our race must've existed just after these Equestrians were born. Perhaps a century or two. So we should've noticed them, there bodies. I mean there have been people snooping around the empty lands, only finding a few buildings, buildings that could've belonged to a clan. Wouldn't you have thought that they would've found a body, at least one?"
That made Hua silent. She never thought of that. No one ever thought of that.
"So, what your saying is, is that something big happened. Something, well... Magic?"
Tulip nodded.
"Yes."
Hua then heard Kuati shout from the deck.
"Guys! You gotta get up here! You gotta see this!"
Hua and Tulip shook there heads.
"He's a butter."
"I know."
Nevertheless they walked up the to the deck and walked over to Kuati. Hua spoke.
"What is it?"
But she didn't need an answer. As she looked over the horizon she saw a large coat of clouds spread over the landscape.
Hua woke up from her slumber. When she opened her eyes she saw Tulip stood in front of her.
"Hua, wake up! Kuati and the others are back!"
Hua was still in a sleepy mood but after another ear bursting "Wake up!" she obeyed her. Hua stood up and wiped the sleep out of her eyes.
"What is it Tulip?"
"The others are back! Let's say hello!"
Tulip hopped out of the room excitedly.
Hua stiffened herself out and yawned. She had only slept for six hours.
The Yearchai gently surfaced onto the ground gently. Since the ship was immune to the wind this was a easy task to complete.
Once they landed the whole crew met up on the surface. Timber walked up to a plank of wood that was leaning against the railing and placed it on the edge of the Yearchai. He pushed it forward so that it could be used as a bridge to get to the surface.
"What be the plan sir?"
Mreco was silent for a second, carefully thinking out a plan.
"Well, we can't be too unaware about any unknown threats, so it would be best for all of us to stay in a group."
Everyone nodded apart from Saeret.
"How about the Yearchai? We can't leave it here."
Tulip nodded in agreement.
"How about me, Hua, Timber and Saeret stay here and watch the boat with the majority of the soldiers while the rest of you and a dozen of soldiers take a wonder?"
Hua nodded in agreement.
"That sounds like a good plan, what does everyone else say?"
Everyone agreed including Mreco.
"Okay, that sounds like a plan. All of you coming with me take a saddle filled with a few items of food, a flask and a roll of bandages. Oh, and Commander-"
Mreco looked towards a velvet coloured pony with the classic Deachrai leather armor.
"Collect ten of your best men and tell them to meet me here!"
The Commander nodded.
"Yes sir, do they require any items of equipment sir."
Mreco paused for a second then looked back.
"A flask of water, food, their sword or pike, bandages and if they're unicorn then a musket as well."
The commander memorised everything the captain said turned to walk to the barracks. Mreco turned to Saeret and spoke.
"I'm leaving you in charge while I'm away, any problems going on your end then contact Kuati or me, you're telepathic, right?"
Saeret nodded and let Mreco continue.
"Also, keep an eye on Timber, he might be with us on this journey but he isn't Deachrai, so he could betray us."
"I don't think so, his daughter is Deachrai."
"Aye, but these days you can't trust anyone, not even someone who you've been with your entire childhood."
He looked over at Hua.
"Well, I better start packing."
He walked off towards the lower deck.
Saeret watched Mreco walk off, his eyes never losing focus untilhe walked through the double doors. Mreco, obviously, still had a grudge with Rhidana. Not a personal one. But it doesn't make it any less then a normal grudge.
Hua was starting to suspect that there was something going on between Kuati and Tulip. For the past few days they've seemed to be together a lot and Hua even saw Kuati walk out of Tulip's cabin once with a bit of a spring in his step.
Hua giggled silently to herself at the thought. She pushed open the door and stepped onto the creaking floorboard. She yawned, not noticing the distant scream that came from outside.
She was still very sleepy, so she didn't notice the guard running somewhere in front of her. She stepped on his hoof.
"Oh my! Oh, I'm sorry..."
The soldier didn't listen to her and just ran off to wherever he was going. Hua was starting to notice that things weren't right. She could hear hooves running across the deck above her.
She briskly walked towards the steps leading up to the top deck. She pushed the door open and walked through. When she turned to her right to where she expected to see the group, she stood there paralysed.
One soldier was on the floor twenty metres away, cuts all across his torso and face. Two other soldiers had injuries, one with a light cut on his face and the other had a large gash on his hind leg. Kuati, Mreco and the other ponies that went off to look around were on the ground floor, looking terrified. Saeret and Tulip were staring at Hua and a large timber wolf stood six feet away from her.
Kuati waved at Hua and Tulip as he and the rest of the group walked down the plank of wood. It creaked underneath his weight but it didn't break into two.
He stepped onto the hard rocky surface of the mountain. He'd never been in a place like here and he'd never felt so cold. The group started walking down the craggy path, if you could call it one.
The group was being lead by Mreco, and Kuati had to hand it to him, he was pretty good. He had sent a trio of scouts up ahead to see whether there were any dangerous pathways or predators.
It had been one hour since they had left the Yearchai and Kuati was starting to feel hungry. He opened up his satchel and took out a dandelion sandwich. When he finished it he still felt hungry. No, not hunger, but something else.
He didn't know what it was but it was biting at him for another half an hour. He thought that he was homesick.
He had been away from home for about a week now and he already missed it. But he wasn't sure what he missed about home. His closest friend, Lren, was back at home but he still had other friends like Hua and.... Tulip.
While Kuati was in a mysterious daydream he didn't notice that the trio of guards had returned with news.
"Mreco, my lord, we have news to inform you of."
Mreco asked politely.
"What sort of news? That of which brings a bane, burden or gratitude?"
The scout shook his head.
"Neutral my lord, but it could become a perk of gratitude."
Mreco gestured him to continue.
"A city, my lord."
"In the mountains?"
"No, it lies beyond a lake that is located at the base of the mountain."
"Okay, we'll head there then."
"Yes my lord, but I have something else to tell you."
Mreco paused for a few seconds.
"What do you mean?"
"Well sir, believe me or not, I'm either insane or the city is made from..."
He looked at his fellow colleagues with uncertainty.
"Crystals."
Everyone was silenced. Then Mreco spoke.
"Good chap, I do believe the first possibility is probably more likely to be the case."
--two hours later--
Kuati's hooves were starting to get sore. They had only taken one break in that one hour it took them to get to this point. At first he thought it was going to take about ten minutes to get there because the scouts had done so. But unfortunately he discovered that they went down a more dangerous, quicker rout which would be to deadly for the whole group to take.
He even heard that if it wasn't for all these low leveled clouds that were touching the ground then he would've been able to see the city. Nevertheless he was still going to continue and besides, the scouts said that they were nearly there.
He noticed that he was surprisingly first so a took his flask out of his satchel. After he satisfied himself with a few drops of refreshing water from the flask he put it back into his satchel and secured the straps.
He then went up to Mreco.
"Do you believe the scouts? Do you really think that there is a crystal city?
Mreco shook his head.
"I don't know, to be honest with you. It might be true, the reports, or it might be lies."
"And if they were lying?"
"I don't know, I'd probably report it to the high council and see what punishment will suit them best."
Kuati was about to ask another question but stopped when he noticed that if he took one more step he would be on the ground floor.
He took that step.
He continued to walk with the group, and he swear he could see something through the mist.
He took a longer look and saw something he only thought existed in fairy tales. A crytal city.
He stood still. He blinked. Then blinked again.
Mreco noticed.
"What are you staring at?"
Kuati was too dumbstruck to say anything. Instead he pointed.
At first Mreco didn't know what he meant but as soon as he saw the large crystal like tower, his jaw dropped down.
The group didn't know what was going on but one by one they noticed the large crystal structure.
Mreco was the first to recover from the shock.
"Okay people, lets get to our destination."
The group walked towards the tower, and as they walked pass the strip of land surrounded by lakes from left and right they noticed that there was houses too, also made out of crystals.
Mreco then stopped and turned around to the whole group.
"We will all form a group of at least two or three each. We will try to collect as much artifacts as we can but don't worry if we can't take everything, we will come back with the Yearchai."
Everyone nodded and Mreco was ordering people into groups of two or three.
"Kuati, go with Flore-"
"Mreco, can I go alone? I don't work well with others."
This wasn't true, infact he would've liked company but he wanted to explore the castle all by himself without someone saying "That's worthless" or "No, come over here", well okay, he didn't really work well with others.
Mreco gave a concern look, he was obviously suspicious of him being a traiter.
"Are you sure?"
Kuati nodded in reply. Mreco sighed and shook his head.
"Very well, but at least have a guard with you."
Kuati smiled and said thankyou.
Mreco looked back at everyone.
"Okay, we'll meet in about one hour, okay?"
The group dispersed in different directions, the vast majority heading towards the castle. The castle was easy to get to as there was a road leading to it. With closer inspection Kuati saw that the crystal walls had started to decay large shards of the rare material was missing. It looked like it had seen many battles.
Kuati and the guard saw a large set of crystal double doors, one of them half opened, the top half of it missing, and one of fully intact apart from a few large scratches here and there.
They both entered through the entrance and looked in awe as they looked the great giant room they were in. Kuati walked up the stairs leading to multiple choices of doors.
He went straight ahead, not caring wether the guard was following or not. He was walking down a large hallway and looked at the carpet. It was surprisingly not made out of crystals. It was made out of a cyan silk that Kuati absorbed the feeling and smiled.
He then heard the guard speak.
"Should we take this my lord?"
Kuati turned around to find him looking at a decayed picture of a pony, he couldn't tell the features of the mare.
"What's the point? We'll be collecting it at some point afterwards when we come back with the Yearchai."
The guard replied.
"Well what will be the point in us searching it now then?"
Kuati laughed.
"Because when we do collect all this stuff the people doing it won't have a donkey's clue what to find."
The guard was confused.
"Sorry sir? I don't understand."
"I'm not looking for artifacts, I'm trying to find out why this civilisation dissapear? What was the cause of their deaths? Yes, objects they had did help, but I'm actually searching, everybody else is collecting."
Kuati continued forwards across the corridor and smiled when he saw the guard's confused face in the reflection of a window, probably made out of transparent crystal.
He turned a corner and saw a row of doors. As Kuati walked past the doors he individually opened each door and took a look inside.
They were all bedrooms, all exactly the same. Either they were for guests or for the servants. Kuati rounded another corner and discovered a lone door at the end of the hallway.
Kuati walked towards the door and opened it. From what he could outside of the room he saw nothing. This grabbed his attention.
He entered the room and looked around. In the corner of the room was a large mirror. Kuati walked up to it and immediately sensed a faint bit of magic. He knew something was up with this mirror. The guard must've sensed this too.
"I can feel something, something weak, but... But different. I've never sensed any magic like this before."
Kuati grinned.
"You see? If we'd been taking every single piece of item then we would probably never have found it."
The guard grinned sheepishly.
"Yes."
Kuati turned back to the mirror and walked towards it. He looked at the frame of the mirror.
There was pink gemstones on the frame and all of them, Kuati noticed, were the source of the magic.
A loud crashing noise came from across the hallway making the unicorn jump. They looked at eachover uncertainly but both of them walked out of the room and walked across the hallway. Kuati heard a few scraping noises. They turned the corner and stared in shock. There was a wolf, a wooden wolf, a wolf made out of sticks and twigs, looking at them.
It's green eyes pierced Kuati like a talon and the beast growled. Kuati did the only thing he thought was best. Run.
The two unicorns sprinted back into the room. They heard scraping noises getting frighteningly closer. The guard used his magical aura to enhance the doors strength. The guard looked back at Kuati to find him looking at mirror frame.
"What are you doing?!"
Kuati didn't answer his question but instead asked him a question.
"How long are you going to be able to hold that door?"
The loud crunching noise of the wood starting to split made the guard jump.
"A minute at the most!"
Kuati grinned.
"Long enough for me!"
The gems are in a pattern. One large gemstone at the top. Underneath that there are two on the left side of the frame and two others symmetrical to them but on the right hand side. There is a little hole, a hole which could fit another gemstone inside of it, someone removed them then, but two other gem stones are located below the gaps.
Another ear splitting crash hit the door again, the monster was obviously going down the corridor for the maximum effect on the door when it charged.
They all have a mark, a line, on one of their corners on each of them. In fact they all are facing a different angle. One of them is on their side and another is upside down, but if they were all in the same angle. If you compared them all together with the scratches then you couldn't notice the difference between them all, the markings are all in the same place.
The monster charged for the seventh and final time, and the door was now just a pile of splinters.
The one at the top, the biggest one, has not been rotated. The mark is located at the top. Actually, it also has other markings around the gem itself, rune markings.
Kuati used a spell to make the markings glow bright yellow.
There, that's better. The one above the gem says "The Birth"
The monster rushed in but the guard shot a spell at it, sending it flying out of the room and sliding across the floor of the hallway.
The bottom one says "The Mirth"
The monster stood back up and growled. The guard shouted.
"What are you doing?!"
On the left it says "The Delusion"
The monster ran and into the room towards the guard. The guard made a temporary wall in front of him and smashed it into it, making it stagger.
And the last one on the right says "The End"
The monster recovered quickly and pounced at the guard.
Pure instinct made Kuati turn around and make a shield to block the blow. The monster smashed through it but the loss of momentum made it's leap shorter and was only three feet away from the guard.
That gave the guard enough time to levitate his musket rifle and fire. It shot the side of the creatures face and a few sticks fell off his face. The force of the impact temporarily paused the wolf in it's place but other then that it wasn't damaged.
Both of the unicorns looked at each over and nodded. They both created a large thick magical aura wall and pushed it into the monster's side. The wolf yelped and was pushed to the right hand side of the room. The two unicorns ran out of the room and down the hallway.
They could here the monster's loud footsteps as they exited the corridor and saw the main entrance.
Hua looked at the large beast and gulped. They stared at each for five seconds, the green eyes were piercing through Hua's courage. She slowly started to back away from the creature, but as soon as it realised what she was doing it attacked.
The large claws of the monster were ten inches long, so even when Hua opened her wings to dodge the strike one of the claws made contact with the fur coat located on her side.
Hua gasped loudly, so loudly that everyone heard her. She looked down at her side and saw a massive cut run from her ribs to her hip bone. The cut was about a few inches deep. She saw the blood drip down from her wound and noticed that the force of the strike had even made the blood splatter seven feet across the deck. She looked back up to the wolf and saw that one of it's claws was covered in blood. Her blood.
The agonising pain was unbearable, it was the most painfull thing she had ever felt.
She didn't notice that Tulip was galloping towards her. She didn't notice Kuati assaulting the monster with a musket, or Mreco firing spells both to attack the monster and defend Timber while he hacked at the monster with the help of Saeret, who was wielding at least three or four axes in his magical grip while teleporting around the monster to confuse it. All that she noticed was the pain. The burning pain at her side.
All went quiet.
All went black.
As Hua's life dripped off of her.
Tulip reached Hua's unconscious body and cried out.
"Someone! Anyone! Help!"
The guard that had bumped into Hua below the deck had come through the exit with bandages. He was shocked to see Hua's body laying there motionless. He levitated the body so that he could use his magic to wrap the bandages around her body to stop the blood loss.
While two of the guards lifted up her body and brought her down to the lower deck with Tulip following closely behind them Kuati had managed to shoot the monster enough times with his musket that one of it's eyes had lost it's menacing green glow.
Mreco's blasts of magic weren't too effective but his shields were doing a good job at protecting Timber and Saeret. Saeret was wielding four small tomahawks in his magical grip but dispite this they were blunt. He was more of a distraction for Timber who used his his shotgun's butt to hand out a great deal of damage. It was obvious that he had only a few shotgun shells as he wasn't using them much, he's only used one to shoot underneath the monster's chin.
This lasted for about fifteen seconds before the monster realised that it would lose if it didn't do something else.
It pounced out onto a clear space of the deck and howled.
The ear piercing howl made the whole crew freeze. The monster backed up near the edge of the vessel, growling at the guards that started to slowly walk towards it.
Kuati reloaded his gun and walked slowly towards the monster. It started to growl louder and louder as he came closer. It was six metres away when a distant howl could be heard far off through the mist. And then another, but this time closer. And then three more howls erupted, getting even closer.
Kuati turned his head around to the source of the noise. Then, another howl erupted from above them, somewhere higher up the mountain. Then a thing jumped down onto the deck and charged at Saeret, taking him by surprise.
The monster sliced at his hoof, leaving a light cut in it's trail.
In the commotoin the first monster leaped at Kuati. Kuati saw the wolf in the corner of his eyes and quickly pulled the trigger of the musket already aiming at it. Since the wolf was so close to the blast the bullet managed to tear through it's snout.
The monster yelped and ran to the other side of the deck. When Kuati turned around he saw that Saeret was doing fine.
Saeret slammed all four of the tomahawks into the creatures side. Kuati also noticed that the wolf was smaller then the first one, so the force was more effective.
The monster fell down howled in pain. Saeret pulled out one of the mini axes from the dying creatures side and striked it down hard upon the creatures skull, ending the torment.
The larger creature was now weakened hardly able to move. Three of the guards aimed their muskets at the creatures face and fired. The creature shrieked louder then before, setting off a few more howls from the other monsters in the mist.
Timber walked over to the wolf and pointed the shotgun imbetween it's eyes. He pulled the trigger.
Ten more howls could be heard from the mist.Timber looked up at Mreco and spoke with an urgent tone.
"We've got to go."
Without hesitation Mreco nodded and Timber dropped his shotgun. He galloped to the steering wheel and shouted out orders to the crew.
"Get the balloon up lads and start the generator up! Don't open up the side sails, the wind isn't in our favour in this hour!"
Kuati rushed to the plank and lifted it up with his magic and planted it down on the deck. He looked out through the mist and spotted a dozen wolves clime up the rocky and steep surface of the mountain.
"Guards! I see a dozen wolves climbing up the mountain towards us!"
Several guards heard his call and came to him.
"Where my lord?"
Kuati pointed his horn at the wolves and blasted a bright light at the wolves, earning him a few growls.
The guards aimed their guns at the monsters and fired. They all hit various parts of the wolves bodies but failed to knock any of them down. As the guards reloaded their muskets Kuati walked to Saeret.
"Saeret, does that hurt?"
Saeret shakes his head.
"Not too much, I don't think I'll need anyone to take a close look at it."
He heard Mreco shout out from the side of the boat.
"They're coming!"
Saeret, Kuati and a dozen guards came over to Mreco. Mreco shouted out orders to the guards.
"Okay men, line up near the side."
The soldiers made row at the edge of the deck. Kuati looked over the railing and gasped. At leat thirty wolves were charging towards them.
"Load up your weapons, if your gun is already ready then aim."
There was a few shuffling noises of soldiers collecting their bullets and a few clicking noises, telling Mreco that they were done. They all aimed at the stampede of wolves drawing closer.
"Okay men, take down the ones nearest to us."
There was a two second pause.
"Fire!"
A loud range of noises erupted from the muskets as the soldiers pulled their triggers. Ten bullets wiizzed through the air and made contact with the stampede of wolves.
Most of the wolves that got hit slowed down a bit but one of them was shot by two bullets in it's face and fell down with a howl.
The soldiers reloaded their weapons and skated for the command.
"Fire!"
A second round of bullets was fired. This time the round of shots did more damage to the beasts and four of them fell down and another three were limping.
But dispite this the few wolves that had survived the two rounds had reached the ship and they were in a pouncing position, three of them altogether.
Mreco blasted a spell at one of the wolves and sent it flying back. The second one jumped up to land on the deck but Kuati levitated his musket and blindly fired. The bullet pierced the creature's eye and burst through the other side of the it's head. The creature landed with a crash seven feet behind Kuati.
The third wolf was in mid leap when Saeret used his magic to throw a tomahawk at the wolf. It pierced the monster's bark and into it's head.
"Fire!"
The creature landed on it's legs and stunbled to the right. The creature saw Saeret try to chuck another tomahawk at it so it so it ran up the few steps to where the steering wheel is located.
Timber saw the monster scrambling up towards him and had a look of shock on his face. He was about to steer the ship around while the air balloon started to lift the ship ever so slowly into the air.
Kuati ran up the stairs and as the wolf was about to pounce at Timber but Kuati but cast a bubble to cover the wolf.
The wolf howled for a second and started ramming into the wall.
"Fire!"
The magical aura gave away to the adrenalin and force of the wolf. The wolf staggered forwards in a dizzy motion and was a foot away from Timber. Timber bucked the wolf from behind and the wolf staggered backwards but took a firm stance.
"Fire!"
The wolf was in a pouncing position but the vessel was now five feet high in the air so when Timber turned the steering wheel to the left the monster missed him and flew over to his right by a metre. Instead it hit into the machinery that powered the balloon with hot air.
The vessel started to flt off and away from the mountains and the monsters. Kuati ran up to the limp body of the wolf that had smashed into the machinery. It was whining. Kuati looked up at the clockwork machinery and noticed that one of the metal rods wasn't there any more. He looked down at the dying wolf and saw that one of it's claws had been ripped off, and when he looked next to the body he noticed that the rod was on the floor, now bent in a awkward way.
He knew that the ship was in trouble, and that he should call for help, inform everyone else about the broken part. But before that he had to do something else. He levitated his musket rifle and aimed it at the poor creature's heart.
Tulip was crying at Hua's bed. The soldier immediately called for a medic and in ten seconds one came.
The pony opened up the bandage to see the damage left behind by the wolf. There was a terrible scar on Hua's side and blood could be seen oozing out.
The medic took out a needle, some fresh bandages, a flask containing a yellow liquid, a roll of thread and a piece of cloth. She opened up the bottle and poured some of the liquid onto the cloth. She dabbed it gently on the sore cut. Tulip looked at the medic.
"What does that do?"
Unlike most doctors or nurses she didn't sound irratated or annoyed, she instead answered with a shy reply.
"This? This will help lady Hua by cleaning out any... Um, dirt or... Well, bacteria in her wound."
The medic stopped dabbing the scar and put the cloth down on the counter. She grabbed the lid of the bottle and twisted it back on. She placed it down next to her and grabbed the needle and thread.
She put the thread thdough the tiny hole in the needle and tied it up with a knot. She then held the needle in a position and pierced through the edge of Hua's cut. She then expertly stitched up Hua's cut. She grabbed the old bandages that were still stuck underneath Hua's body and wrapped the fresh ones around her body.
When the medic packed up the bottle, dropped the old bandages and the the thread in the bin and put the needle in a plastic box labeled "Contaminated Items" Kuati came through the door.
"Is Hua alright?"
The medic tilted her head to Hua.
"I've just finished stitching her up. We can't tell for sure how bad it is until she wakes up."
Kuati smiled at her.
"Thank you."
The medic blushed slightly and walked out of the room quietly
When the door clicked, indicating that the door had been shut, Kuati walked over to the bed and put a gentle hoof on Hua's shoulder and started to sob quietly to himself.
"It's my fault, it's my fault Hua. If I hadn't of gone up there then you would be alright."
For another five seconds he stayed there until he felt Tulip's gentle hoof touch his shoulder.
"What happened? What happened to the wolf?"
Kuati coughed and turned around to Tulip.
"We killed it, but before we managed to do that it howled and called around fifty other wolves. We managed to hold them off for long enough though and escaped, but... Well, one of them smashed into the mechanism that gives the balloon hot air and damaged it. Soo, we're going to have to land in the crystal empire to try and find the resources to repair it"
"What was the crystal empire like?"
Kuati looked at Tulip and smiled.
"Crystal."
"What? Do you mean they actually had some crystal artifacts?"
Kuati's grin grew wider.
"Well, if you include the walls, doors, windows, floor-"
"Whoa whoa whoa whoa... Are you telling the truth?"
Kuati nodded.
"Whoooaaaaaa."
--two hours later--
Hua heard noises coming from the deck. She opened her eyes slowly and saw that she was on her bed, in her bedroom.
She yawned and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes.
"Hm, probably a bad dream."
She rolled off her bed and landed on her feet. Then a pain began to sear through her body. Not a dream.
She gasped at the pain and staggered down onto the floor. She breathed heavily and tried to get back up on her two hooves but the pain was too unbearable.
The door creaked open slightly and a guard looked in. When he saw Hua he ran towards her and shouted.
"We need the medic! Lady Hua is awake!"
The guard knelt down on his four knees to let Hua lean on him to help her up. Once she was firmly on the ground the guard guided Hua to her bed and she got on her bed.
The medic knocked at the door and opened it. She looked around the room and saw Hua awake. She gave her a small smile and walked towards her. The guard looked at the medic.
"Can I help in any way?"
The medic opened up her satchel and looked through it.
"Um, yes please, can you tell Mreco that Lady Hua is awake and while your at it can you ask the servants to bring down some food for Lady Hua."
The guard nodded.
"Anything else?"
"No, no thankyou, that'll be all."
The guard nodded and walked out of the room. The medic pulled out a pair of scissors and a few seconds later pulled out a roll of bandages. She put them down on the desk and looked at Hua.
"Do you feel any pain? Any unusual pain?"
Hua nodded weakly.
"Aye, I do, a lot of pain to be precise but apart from that nothing else."
The medic smiled and nodded.
"That's good, it looks like the monster didn't have any poison or any form of chemicals on it's claws."
When she said the word "monster" Hua's memory started to build back up again.
"What was that thing, was it some sort of wooden wolf or something?"
"It was some sort of wolf made from sticks and logs, some strange magic of some sort."
Hua nodded and then a thought suddenly sparked in her head.
"What happened to it, the wolf?"
The medic collected the scissors and held them up next to the bandages.
"The wolf was defeated but it called another thirty, perhaps fifty more of the abominations and the crew had to defend themselves from the onslaught. The captain managed to get the ship running and we escaped but one of the wolves damaged the burner and we had to land here."
The medic cut through the bandages and peeled them all off, revealing a stitched up scar. The medic examined the scar.
"Quite a scar you have here Lady Hua."
Hua smiled.
"You don't have to call me that, just call me Hua, and what's your name?"
The medic blushed slightly and replied.
"Florentinvalrona, but you could just call me Florentine."
"That's quite a long name."
Florentine nodded and pulled the scissors closer to the stitches.
"Your wound has healed a bit now and is capable of keeping the wound closed, the stitching is not necessary."
She snipped the first piece of thread and continued to do that with all of them. Once she had done that she then pulled out all the loose string and a small trickle of blood oozed out of the tiny holes that the thread had been just ten seconds ago.
Florentine searched in her bag and found a cloth. She took it out and dabbed at the blood for ten seconds. Once the blood stopped flowing out Florentine walked over to the sink and placed the cloth in it.
"The servants should take this and wash it out for me."
She washed them scissors underneath the sink and the small amount of blood that had made contact with it dissapeard.
The door opened once again and Mreco, Tulip, Kuati and Saeret walked in with a servant behind them. Tulip ran over to Hua's bed and hugged her gently.
"I'm glad that you're alright and finally awake."
Hua smiled back at Tulip.
"Same here."
Mreco and tulip stepped forward to Hua. Saeret smiled at her.
"Well Hua, fate obviously has other plans for you my friend."
Mreco grinned.
"When we saw that thing swipe at you with those claws of his we thought that you were a goner."
The servant walked beside Mreco and levitated a tray full of salad and sandwiches down on her desk.
"Is this all?"
Mreco nodded and the servant exited the room. Hua looked around at Florentine and saw that she had packed up her tools and equipment.
"Thanks Florentine."
Florentine blushed and nodded quickly.
"N- no problem."
She walked out of the cabin silently. Saeret looked at where Florentine had been standing a few seconds ago.
"She's a quiet one, isn't she?"
Mreco nodded in agreement.
"I agree, but I picked her to join this crew because of her skills, one of the best doctors in the Deachrai."
Hua smiled.
"I think she's cool, good personality and all that."
Mreco smiled for a second but his expression changed.
"Have you heard about the burner?"
Hua shook her head.
"Yeah, one of the monsters had damaged the ship."
Saeret nodded his head.
"We had to land at the closest city, to repair the vessel."
Hua nodded her head but then noticed that Kuati hadn't said anything yet. In fact, he looked pretty sad. She threw the thought away when she heard Tulip's voice.
"And guess what Hua!"
"What?"
There was a one second pause until Tulip spoke out.
"The city is made out of crystals! All of it!"
There was a five second pause before Hua spoke again.
"I may not be the brightest penny in the world but I'm not that stupid!"
A day had passed since Hua had woken up and Hua's scar was now confirmed to have not been contaminated. She also found that the pain was starting to go away and now it was just a slight ache. Hua didn't believe the others when they had said that the place was made out of crystals, but one look out of the cabin window told her otherwise.
Hua was now looking inside of the castle, admiring the unique choice of materials when Kuati walked up to her. Since he hadn't said anything since she had woken up she wanted to speak to him.
"Um, Hua, I need to tell you something."
Hua grinned at him.
"What is it Kuati?
He hesitated, then opened his mouth and closed it again, trying to find something to say.
"Um, Hua, I well, I want to tell you..."
He hesitated again.
"Well, no, I mean I want to show you something."
Hua's joyful expression turned into one of slight confusion.
"Well, okay, what is it?"
Kuati's mouth made a small smile.
"You wouldn't understand unless you see it. But are you coming?"
Hua nodded uncertainendly and Kuati led the way.
Hua could tell that, by looking at Kuati, he was nervous.
A few minutes had passed while they had been walking and they were now in a small corridor. Hua looked around and saw that the carpet had been pushed in one place making it lose it's almost perfect symmetry. Looking up she saw that near that spot there was a smashed window. Hua was careful enough to avoid the shards of transparent crystal.
Hua followed Kuati around the corner of the hallway and looked forward to see a door ripped off of it's hinges. Kuati walked inside followed by Hua.
The room was empty, the only object to be seen was a large mirror. Kuati walked up to it.
"I wanted to show you this. You may not realise it but this is a puzzle."
Hua trotted up to it and looked at her reflection.
"How is this a puzzle?"
Kuati levitated a splinter of wood and made it point at the gemstone located at the top of the frame.
"This, is a key, not a key to unlock something, but a key to show the meaning of something."
The splinter then pointed towards a visible line cutting through the top of the gemstone which carried on going down until it reached halfway down.
"You see this scratch line?"
Hua nodded.
"Yeah, I do."
"Well, this line can be seen on the other eight gems."
The splinter then pointed towards the other gemstones which were parallel to each over. Kuati then shot the space around the top gemstone to reveal glowing words.
"The word above the scratch says 'the birth', the one at the bottom of the gem says 'the mirth', the left says 'the delusion' and the one on the right says 'the end'."
Hua looked at the words carefully and noticed that Kuati was right. The splinter then pointed towards the gems again.
"The gemstone at the top is a key for the rest of the gemstones."
Hua noticed that all of the scratch marks on the gems below were mostly pointing in other directions. The splinter pointed at the first two gemstones at the top that were parallel to each over.
"These are pointing upwards, the scratches are anyway, so that means that the key gemstone is saying that these two represent birth."
He pointed at the two other gemstones below them.
"These point downwards, representing mirth."
He pointed to the ones below that.
"These point to the left, representing delusion."
And finally he pointed to the last two bottom ones.
"These face to the right hand side, representing the end."
Kuati let the splinter fall from the dissapearing aura's grasp and looked at Hua.
"It's been put into a order, the birth, the mirth, the delusion and the end."
Hua looked around the frame for a few seconds before pointing at two holes parallel to each over.
"So, there used to be gemstones in these holes but they got removed, but why?"
Kuati genuinely smiled, for the first time in three days.
"Because it's a puzzle Hua, if the person who made this puzzle kept the gemstones they would've probably confused us. We're onto something."
Hua nodded.
"I do think that you are right Kuati."
They both looked at each over and smiled. Kuati was the first to stop smiling.
"Hua, it was me that gave you that scar."
Hua stopped smiling and frowned.
"What do you mean?"
Kuati sighed.
"Well, you know that broken window? Well, that's how the wolf came in. Me and the guard that was with me ran into this room and the guard used his magic to block the door. If I hadn't decided to try and crack this mystery to waste the valuable time to try and think of a plan to contain it then we wouldn't be stuck here and you wouldn't have that cut."
Hua took three seconds to consume this information and she simply smiled.
"Kuati, I forgive you."
Those words made Kuati's eyes brighten.
"You mean it?"
Hua nodded and walked over to Kuati to hug him. Kuati hugged her back. Hua whispered in his ear.
"I'll always forgive you, you're my friend, and that's what friends are for."
Saeret let out a yawn and opened up the cabin door. The two guards standing outside immediately followed Saeret from behind.
He walked up onto the deck and took a long look at the aura shield that surrounded the whole castle.
It hadn't been easy, to conjour up a large shield around the whole structure, even with the help of Mreco and the other elders. But nontheless, it still protected them from the Timberwolves.
Saeret walked across the deck of the ship and sighed. He turned towards Timber and walked up to him. Timber was, with the help of three other crew members, repairing the burner.
Timber let out a long sigh as he dropped his spanner and leaned against the railing of the ship.
"Timber, this is starting to get ridiculous, when we landed you said that a day was all that you needed. It's been more than a day now and we're not doing any better then when those monsters came after us."
Timber turned his head towards Saeret and replied.
"I never said tha' i' was going to be a easy bang o' the hammer and a twist o' the spanner, mah crew have been scavenging around to find any parts that could help but a' the moment we haven' found nothing'."
Saeret let out a groan and joined Timber next to the railing and looked over the horizon, through the aura shield.
"Well, we can't stay here, not for too long. My magic is starting to slowly drain away and unless we want all the elders on this ship to slip into a five month coma then we'll be needing to get going."
A silence hung in the air. Saeret noticed a small dot in the distance, moving around in the fog, probably a timber wolf. Timber gave Saeret a stern look.
"Saeret, do you really think that this is necessary?"
Saerets unreadable face turned into that of a frown.
"What do you mean captain?"
Timber continued.
"This search for the secrets o' the dead kingdom, this Equestria of yours."
Saeret's frown didn't change.
"Yes, I do think that this is neccarcery, we could Learn a-"
"No sir, not the prize, but the actual path. The war."
A awkward pause hung in the air. Saeret noticed that the small dot had now disappeared, probably ran off to hunt some sort of prey.
Saeret took in a small breath.
"Well, there isn't a war going on, just a few misunderstandings-"
Timber abruptly interrupted him.
"Aye Saeret, but you know that it's comin' and there is no point in hiding the inevitable, the spark has all ready been lit by Rhidana an' the dinamite is going to blow up."
Saeret was stunned. He never expected the calm and gruff captain to assault him with words of the war.
Saeret recovered and turned to face Timber.
"You're not apart of the Deachrai so you have no business to ponder on the matter of any conflict between the Deachrai or Salmaic, captain."
That last words ended with a hiss, a hiss which told Timber to back off and be silent, but the captain ignored it.
"All do respect, my lord, but I was given a contract by your mighty fine leader that I am apart of this journey, and that I will be able to speak freely o' any-"
"Aye, captain, you were granted permission to disscuss with us the plans of this journey, this mission, but the topic of war between the Deachrai and Salmaic have nothing to do with what you sighed up for."
Timber's face burned a bright crimson.
"NO, Saeret, that's where you're wrong! The Salmaic are undoubtedly searching for whatever we're searching for, and the chances are that we'll see them, that's why they're apart of this mission!"
Saeret narrowed his eyes and looked at the captain, his words nothing more than a hiss.
"Sorry captain, but I'm afraid to say that we're not going to have a full guarantee that the Salmaic is going to attack us or meet us. So get on with repairing the burner and tell your men to get a move on."
All the red from Timber's face flushed out and he replied coldly.
"Yes, my lord."
Timber straightened himself and walked back to the burner.
Mreco looked over the railings of the high up crystal balcony and through the transparent glowing shield that surounded the castle.
He saw a small dot in the distance, probably a timber wolf out hunting, move slowly towards the barrier of the shield and stop. A few seconds later the dot started to slowly move away, and then move at a rapid pace, probably sniffed out it's prey.
Within a minute the dot turned into a speck and that speck soon disappeared.
Mreco let out a loud and audible sigh, but then felt a curious tap of a hoof touch his hind leg.
Mreco turned around to see the pony that wanted his attention and saw that it was Chipper, Tulip's younger brother.
"Hello! My name is Chipper, what's yours?!"
The last two words were no more then a little squeal of excitement. Mreco smiled at the younger pony.
"Hello Chipper, I'm Mreco."
Chipper's face had a large beam of smile across it.
"Mrecko!"
Mreco chuckled silently to himself.
"No, mure-eck-oh, Mreco!"
Chipper's beaming smile turned into that of a confused one.
"Merrecko? Murkecko?"
Mreco laughed pleasantly and placed a hoof on Chipper's shoulder.
"That's close enough."
"You have a weird name, don't you?"
Mreco smiled broadly.
Yes, I suppose I do have quite a funny name!"
Chipper's broad smile came back and he giggled. Mreco leaned forwards against the railing and gestured Chipper to join him.
"But what would a young colt be doing here in this voyage with us?"
Chipper answered without hesitation.
"I'm going on a adventure!"
Mreco laughed at the colt's enthusiasm.
"What kind of adventure?"
Chipper paused for a few seconds before he came to a conclusion.
"Well... I don't know, I mean, there has to be treasure, right?"
Mreco nodded.
"No doubt, in such a large place made of crystals, like this castle, there is bound to be treasure somewhere!"
Chipper went silent for a few more seconds, intensely thinking, until he came up with a idea.
"We're going to find a castle made out of gold and diamonds! And inside we'll find lots of rubys and crystals! Then we can all live inside it!"
Mreco smiled for half a second before it turned into a sad smile.
"If only this quest could end like that, a happy ending."
A tear appeared on his face and rolled down his cheek. Chipper awkwardly stood there for five seconds, until he noticed something far off in the distance.
"Look! I think that our friends have come to help us!"
He pointed his hoof towards the distance. Mreco followed his line of sight and when he saw what Chipper had highlighted, his eyes widened in utter shock.
A dozen flying vessels had managed to flow towards them, and were now within his view. The glowing aura of the shield and the mist had managed to cloak the vessels up until now, and they were less then a kilometre away from the shield.
Saeret broke out of his gaze when he heard Timber from behind him.
"Everyone! Get your gear together and get ready! Get your selves into position!"
Saeret realised what the captain was planning.
"No, Timber, we need to retreat back to the castle, it's a better defence and we'll have the vantage point."
Timber lowered his head and sighed, obvious pain showing through. He kicked at the ground and silently cursed.
"All right Saeret, your right."
He looked at the wheel of the ship sadly and hesitated before shouting out his new orders.
"Scratch that men, gather your gear and head to the castle, we'll have to leave the Yearchai behind."
Those last words ended with a silent pause, a pause he left to hang in the air.
Saeret walked towards Timber and put a hoof on his shoulder.
"You were right captain, the Salmaic are apart of this mission. I'm sorry for doubting you, but we need to go."
Timber sighed heavily. Saeret looked up to see the unmistakable flags of the war symbol of the Salmaic. The design and materials weren't as good as the Yearchai, but they undoubtedly had cannons and more ammunition equipped with them.
Timber looked towards the cabin door and gave Saeret a weak smile.
"It would be best for me to get myself mah shotgun, you go on ahead towards the castle."
Timber didn't wait for a reply, he walked towards the doors leading to the deck of the ship. Saeret looked at the captain whilst he opened the doors to the lower deck.
Mreco looked towards one of the guards and nodded.
"Escort this colt to safety."
The guard nodded his head and gestured for Chipper to follow. Chipper looked at Mreco with worry in his eyes.
"Have I done something bad?"
Mreco shook his head.
"No no, just follow the guard, he'll bring you to safety."
Chipper nodded uncertainly but nonetheless followed the guard through the pristine doorway.
Mreco looked over at the fleet of ships and sighed heavily.
"Damn you Geretiyak."
Saeret carefully analysed all five of the ships, eventually finding his line of sight stop at a particularly large vessel with — by the looks of it — three lower decks and three beams instead of two. Tulip and three of the Elders walked towards Mreco with mouths agape.
Mreco turned his head around towards the larger ship.
"That will be where the captain, admiral, whoever is in charge of this fleet, will be in."
Tulip's face grew pale and two other elders shortly joined the group of already babbling elders.
"What, who are they?"
Mreco replied instantly.
"The Salmaic."
Tulip's face turned another shade of white.
"Are they here to help us?"
"The Salmaic, they've either come here to shoot bullets through our skulls or give us a large wet kiss on our foreheads."
Mreco leaned in towards Tulip's ear.
"I beg to differ for the first assumption."
He headed to the door and called behind him.
"Anyone joining me?"
The group of elders quickly followed behind him through the double set of doors. He looked towards the guard before giving him his orders.
"If any others come here then tell them that we'll be in the throne room."
The guard nodded.
Somewhere, outside the outskirts of the great aura shield there was a scout, hiding in the shadows and keeping low. She knew that the great vessels must've been spotted by now, causing a distraction for the enemy within the crystal walls.
She had been ordered to surround the outskirts of the mountains laying north to the castle, ready to capture any of the enemy if they decide to turn to the mountains for refuge.
She continued to walk across the hardened stone ground, the mist blocking her view.
She eventually came to a stop when she saw a natural archway leading up to a path upwards, towards the top of the mountain. She decided to hide behind the archway to ambush anyone who decided to walk by.
A loud ear piercing noise erupted from outside.
Hua's smile turned into a confused frown.
"What's that noise?"
Kuati looked out through the window.
"It seems to be coming from outside."
Kuati, followed by Hua, looked out of the window. Their view through the window only showed the northern mountains, not any source of the noise. But Kuati sweared that he could've seen a little black dot dissapear.
Hua turned back around to the door and gestured for Hua to follow. The two ponies walked across the hallway when they heard another round of- cannons?
The confused duo continued through the castle, unaware that the guards weren't patrolling around the castle anymore.
Tulip was starting to worry now. Where was Hua and Kuati?! They must've been somewhere, surely? They must've heard the cannons by now?
Tulip glanced out through the window and watched as the Salmaic warships shot their cannon balls towards the shield, every shot causing a small crack to emerge.
She looked back towards the group of elders discussing plans.
